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Month: April 2012

New Treasures: Warhammer 40K: A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns on Unabridged Audio

New Treasures: Warhammer 40K: A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns on Unabridged Audio

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prospero-plus11When I drove my son Tim to Blue Lake Fine Arts camp in Michigan last summer, during the five hour drive we listened to Steve Lyons’ The Madness Within and Sandy Mitchell’s Dead in the Water, both 65-minute audiobooks in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

And boy, they were great. Both were extremely polished, with professional readers and solid production values, including subtle sound effects and rousing music.

Best of all they were terrific stories — especially the Ciaphas Cain tale Dead in the Water. Commissar Cain is a rogue with no interest in heroics of any kind, but an enviable talent for getting out of sticky situations. When he’s posted to Archipelaga, a feral ocean world slowly being pacified by the Imperium, he soon finds himself investigating the mystery of a missing squad, and facing a dangerous and unknown enemy.

Cain’s an engaging and frequently very funny protagonist, and the story was the perfect length. After that I was on the hunt for more audiobooks from Black Library.

Last week my wishes were granted. In fact, they were exceeded in spectacular fashion: with the arrival of unabridged audio adaptations of two seminal works in The Horus Heresy cannon:  A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns, both New York Times bestsellers.

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Rich Horton Reviews Arctic Rising

Rich Horton Reviews Arctic Rising

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arctuic-rising-tobias-buckellArctic Rising
Tobias S. Buckell
Tor ( $24.99, hc, February 2012, 304 pages)
Reviewed by Rich Horton

Tobias S. Buckell began his novelistic career with a very nice linked trio of books that fit fairly readily with what has been called “New Space Opera” – adventure stories set in space (or at least on distant planets), the main difference between “New” and “Old” Space Opera being a greater concern in the newer stuff for non-white characters, and perhaps a lesser belief in the primacy of humanity’s position in the Universe. His career hiccuped a bit in recent years, partly simply because he was changing course to a different sort of book, but more seriously because of some health issues. But his new novel, Arctic Rising, is now out, and it’s another cracker – as full of action and neat Sfnal ideas as his first three books, but set on Earth in the near future, and taking as its subject a central contemporary concern, global warming.

The protagonist of Arctic Rising, Anika Duncan, is an airship pilot for the United Nations Polar Guard. As the story opens she and her partner notice a radiation signature on a ship entering arctic waters, but when they investigate, the ship shoots them out of the sky, seemingly a rather disproportionate response. Her partner dies, and Anika is eager to find justice for him, but soon realizes that the investigation has hit a brick wall. When she makes noise, things get worse quickly, in classic thriller fashion: Anika’s home is bombed, she’s beaten up and only barely escapes being killed. She ends up on the run with a sort of “prostitute with a heart of gold” – that is, a brothel operator who has taken a shine to her. The one clue she has leads her to a ship run by the radical Green organization Gaia, who have a plan to stop global warming. But it turns out their tech can be used in multiple ways …

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Zero Fantasy

Zero Fantasy

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Ten thousand gallons of virtual ink have already been spent on the subject of cliché elves’n’dwarves’n’rogues’n’rangers fantasy.  But here’s a few droplets that I think are worth noting.

A photo of Yahtzee taken at his Swedish manorhouse
A photo of Yahtzee taken at his Swedish manorhouse

Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, for those not fully assimilated into the etherium of the web, is a popular reviewer of games and maker of funny videos.  He’s also the author of Mogworld, which I haven’t read.  Anyway, in his recent video review of the fantasy RPG Kingdoms of Amalur, he introduces a point which he expands on in the first few paragraphs of this essay.  Why does fantasy, theoretically the genre of limitless possibilities, so often fall back on the same stock elements (elves, dwarves, pseudo-Europe, fireballs, etc.)?

Now, here’s the thing: I think Yahtzee is largely arguing against a historical problem, at least when it comes to books.  Gaming may be different, with Dragon Age, Skyrim, and World of Warcraft riding high on a post-Tolkien wave of their own.  But when it comes to books, I’m honestly not seeing much of the cliché elf and dwarf pie being produced.

There are certainly shared universes, whether they be roleplaying settings like Pathfinder or Eberron, or the enormous line of Black Library titles for Warhammer and Warhammer 40K, but they don’t make any claims to originality of setting or trapping.  Many of those books tell great stories with memorable characters, but they do so with familiar elements and surroundings, and pretend to do more.  There’s something comforting about that, actually, and I rather enjoyed the only Pathfinder novel I read.

But in the wider world of fantasy, I’m just not seeing a glut of elves and dwarves or anything that’s recognizably derived from D&D.  I’m seeing Brandon Sanderson, Jim Butcher, Brent Weeks, and  Harry Conolly, James Enge and John C. Wright and Scott Lynch.  Well, okay, Enge has dragons and dwarves, but no one would mistake Morlock’s world for Forgotten Realms.

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This Week’s Bargain SF & Fantasy Books at Amazon.com

This Week’s Bargain SF & Fantasy Books at Amazon.com

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extreme-fantasyThis week sees some great bargains on fantasy, dark fantasy and horror from Carroll & Graf, including several of their splendid Mammoth Book Of... anthologies such as Mike Ashley’s The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy, and a fine collection from Stephen Jones covering Dracula, Wolf Men, Monsters, and more. These are sizable trade paperbacks, 500 pages or more, and they assemble a wide assortment of excellent short fantasy.

For those looking for something a little edgier, or at least more in tune with modern publishing, I’ve also included The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance, volumes 1 and 2, and The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance 2, all edited by Trisha Telep. You’re welcome.

Lou Anders’ terrific superhero anthology Masked is now available for just six measly bucks. Two installments of Barb Hendee’s urban Vampire Memories series are also on the list, as is the first novel by Bram Stoker’s great-grandnephew Dacre Stoker, Dracula The Un-Dead, the direct sequel to Dracula (read William Patrick Maynard’s review here).

Jeffrey Ford, author of the weird and wild story “Exo-Skeleton Town” in Black Gate 1 (read the complete text here), has a great selection of novels available available at steep discounts this week, including The Drowned Life, The Girl in the Glass, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, and The Shadow Year.

Finally, don’t overlook two of the finest titles on this week’s list: Margo Lanagan’s World Fantasy Award-winning novel Tender Morsels, and the latest collection by the marvelous Kelly Link, Pretty Monsters.

As always, quantities on these bargain books are very limited. All these titles are eligible for free shipping on orders over $25.

Many of last week’s discounts are still available; you can see them here.

Apex Magazine #35

Apex Magazine #35

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apexmag0412_mediumThis month’s Apex Magazine is a special international themed issue, featuring ”Love is a Parasite Meme” by Lavie Tidhar  (who is interviewed by Stephanie Jacob) and  ”The Second Card of the Major Arcana” by Thoraiya Dyer; the classic reprint is “Alternate Girl’s Expatriate Life”  by Rochita Loenen-Ruuize.

Raul Cruz provides the cover art. Nonfiction by Charles Tan and editor Lynne M. Thomas round out the issue.

While each issue is available free on-line from the magazine’s website, it can also be downloaded to your e-reader from there for $2.99.  Individual issues are also available at  Amazon and Weightless. A version for the Nook will also be available in the near future.  Twelve issue (one year) subscription can be ordered at Apex and Weightless for $19.95; Kindle subscriptions are available for $1.99 a month.


Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Yellow Claw – Part One

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Yellow Claw – Part One

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lippincott1detective-storySax Rohmer’s The Yellow Claw was originally serialized in five installments in Lippincott’s from February through June 1915. The serial was subsequently published in book form later that same year by Methuen Press in the UK and McBride & Nast in the US. The novel chooses to divide the story into four sections which is how we shall examine the title over the next four weeks.

Rohmer’s first Yellow Peril thriller outside the Fu Manchu series is chiefly remembered today for having introduced the character of his dapper French detective, Gaston Max of the Surete. Max went on to feature in three other novels [The Golden Scorpion (1918), The Day the World Ended (1929), and Seven Sins (1943)] as well as the BBC radio series, Myself and Gaston Max adapted from a series of short stories about an entirely different Rohmer character, The Crime Magnet.

Gaston Max was highly influenced by Edgar Allan Poe’s Auguste Dupin, the series detective who did much to direct the development of the mystery genre and was a primary source of inspiration for both Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot. Max was not Rohmer’s first attempt at fashioning his own French detective after Dupin’s example. His very first novel, The Sins of Severac Bablon (1912) featured Gaston Max’s prototype, Victor Lemage. The interesting feature is that while elements of Yellow Peril thrillers will surface in the book, Rohmer was trying hard to write a more conventional and realistic detective story in a direct break from the thrillers that made his name.

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In Defense of Elves

In Defense of Elves

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hornsofruin1I’m in the middle of another book, this one my fourth, and the first in a series of four. But writers are always in the middle of a book, always writing the next book, always revising the current one. And, worst of all, always reviewing and revising and dwelling endlessly on the books of the past.

One of the great things about the Arts is that you create specific works that are pretty much a time capsule of who you were and what you were capable of doing at one discrete point in your life. Each book is a little piece of you that you leave behind in the time stream, and every time you open it you get to re-live and remember what it was like to write that book. It’s a little bit like having a conversation with a younger self.

I don’t mean to sound pretentious when I say things like that. I think too much about what it means to be a writer, how we go about coming up with worlds and gods and believable characters, and then translate those ideas into words in such a way that a reader can experience them as well. Let’s be honest, words are probably the crudest, clumsiest, most difficult to wield of all the creative arts. We depend so much on the imagination of the reader. A writer doesn’t even get to read the book to the writer, and instead has to depend on the reader’s ability to pace the sentences correctly, read the dialogue with the right tonality… everything. It’s troublesome, when you really think about it. This is why I encourage you to go to readings when you get a chance, if only to hear the words in the writer’s voice.

Anyway. One of the books I’ve written is The Horns of Ruin, which was published by the fine folks at Pyr Books in 2010. I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently because what I was trying to do when I started that book is similar to what I’m trying to do with the current work. But at some point I changed my plan and went in a different direction.

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Goth Chick News: Welcome to the Hotel Transylvania

Goth Chick News: Welcome to the Hotel Transylvania

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ht-bannerNothing sends me straight to my happy place faster than a cartoon; unless it’s a cartoon about monsters.

This probably started before I could walk with the Saturday-morning Bugs Bunny episodes; specifically Hair-Raising Hare featuring the first appearance of the sneaker-wearing creature “Gossamer.” As an adult I was still so enamored with Gossamer that I very nearly had him tattooed on my…

Well thankfully I decided against it.

But maybe its comic books or Captain Crunch cereal or anything related to Star Wars which does the same thing for you. You know you held onto those Dark Lord of Sith footie PJ’s and don’t try to say it was for the collectable value either.

Nowadays, what I love most about cartoons (or animated features as we now call them) is their multiple layers of humor. Just try watching those Warner Brothers shorts today and see what I mean. There was a whole different level of funny which was aimed at our parents, thus flying straight over our heads.

And happily this tradition has carried forward to features like The Incredibles and Despicable Me. I own both and even though I’ve watched them dozens of times, I still kill myself laughing over something new I hadn’t noticed before.

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New Treasures: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Six

New Treasures: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Six

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years-best-sf-sixIn the days of my halcyon youth (no, I’m not 100% sure what that word means either, but I’ve always liked it), I used to look forward to the Year’s Best SF collections from Terry Carr, Lin Carter, and Donald Wollheim. I was still being introduced the riches of the field, and those Best Of volumes were a terrific shortcut to discovering the finest writers out there.

In our modern times this tradition is carried on by Rich Horton, David Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer, Gardner Dozois, and the talented Mr. Jonathan Strahan, who’s now up to his sixth volume of The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year.

I’ve found his past collections excellent, and this year looks to be no exception. Here’s a peek at the contents:

An ancient society of cartographer wasps create delicately inscribed maps; a bodyjacking parasite is faced with imminent extinction; an AI makes a desperate gambit to protect its child from a ravenous dragon; a professor of music struggles with the knowledge that murder is not too high a price for fame; living origami carries a mother’s last words to her child; a steam girl conquers the realm of imagination; Aliens attack Venus, ignoring an incredulous earth; a child is born on Mars…

For the sixth year in a row, master anthologist Jonathan Strahan has collected stories that captivate, entertain, and showcase the very best the genre has to offer. Critically acclaimed, and with a reputation for including award-winning speculative fiction, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year is the only major “best of” anthology to collect both fantasy and science fiction under one cover.

The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Six is published by Night Shade Books. It is 606 pages for $19.99 in trade paperback, with a cover by Sparth.  Buy it online from one of my favorite book sellers, Mark V. Ziesing at Ziesing.com.

Alan Garner: The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Moon of Gomrath, and Elidor

Alan Garner: The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Moon of Gomrath, and Elidor

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The Weirdstone of BrisingamenIn mid-March the news emerged that writer Alan Garner was returning to the storylines of his first two books, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath. His next novel, Boneland, to be published this August, will complete the trilogy he’d always envisioned. Garner was quoted as saying

“Trilogies are strange creatures. The lack of the third book, I discovered, gave the readers of the first two a sense of urgency. There are nuggets in the text that hint of unfinished business. The links to the book-not-written had become subliminal cliffhangers. Why did it take so long for Boneland to gestate? All I can say is that it took as long as it took.”

Garner’s longstanding fans are elated. The first two books in the series came out in the early 1960s, so this really has been some time in coming. In the interim, Garner’s published fairy tale collections and several non-fantasy novels. He’s said that he’s never written specifically for children, but for whatever reason children seem to respond more directly to his work than adults. Not that praise from adults is lacking; the fiftieth-anniversary republication of Brisingamen contained testimonials from Neil Gaiman, Philip Pullman, and Susan Cooper.

I had vague memories of reading Brisingamen when I was very young. Since I’d picked up an omnibus collection of three of Garner’s books — Brisingamen, Gomrath, and the non-related Elidor — the announcement prompted me to sit down and take another look at Garner’s work. I was impressed.

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